


Far from the Tree

by romanticalgirl



Series: behind the song [10]
Category: Decoration Day (Song)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had no one to fall on but me</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far from the Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sionnain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sionnain/gifts).



> Special thanks to inlovewithnight for the beta and to Jason Isbell for the awesome lyrics

_Albany Herald_   


> Michael Edward Lawson: Mr. Lawson was pronounced dead at South Montgomery Hospital early this morning. He was brought in after being discovered by a jogger, and was apparently the victim of a random shooting. Police are currently investigating, though there are few clues in the case. Mr. Lawson leaves no surviving family.

* 

There's a plot of trees by the house, a bunch of smaller ones surrounding a huge tree that looks like the kind that boys would spend lifetimes in, creating adventures. I've gone out there every night now, wishing I could cut a gash in the thick bark and make the rings spill out all the secrets of its skin.

* 

_Albany Herald_   


> Joseph Edward Lawson: Mr. Lawson leaves behind one living son, predeceased by his wife, Addison Margaret (nee: Simpson) and four sons. No services have been announced.

* 

I inherited the house five years ago, although I've just now come to claim it. It's like something out of a novel – an old country homestead – but it feels more like something gothic, like I could look outside and see Heathcliff wandering the moors rather than an ocean of tobacco and cotton fields.

The letter came in the mail, and I ignored it until I realized none of it made any sense. I didn't have any family, and I certainly didn't know of anyone that might be some sort of anonymous benefactor, randomly deciding to leave me a house a couple thousand miles away from home.

So I took vacation from work and packed a bag and came here.

* 

_Leary Times-Register_   


> Holland David Hill, Junior: Son of prominent lumber mill owner, Holland Hill, was found by deputies patrolling the foothills after complaints from locals regarding a foul stench. Cause of death has not been determined, though early reports indicate the possibility of foul play.

* 

There's a stain on the front porch, an uneven spatter of dark, dried paint. I haven't matched it to anything, but I keep looking, wondering how many times the walls have been painted over.

There isn't any furniture to speak of – a rusted bed frame and a beat-up table and chairs. Of course, there's really not that much of a house to go with it, but I get the power turned on and buy a sleeping bag and pillow, stocking up on food from the curious clerk at the local store.

It's an old-time, small-town feeling when he knows I'm at 'the Old Lawson Place' and he knows that no Lawson has lived there for almost 20 years. When I ask him why, he simply shrugs and tells me that all of the Lawsons are dead.

* 

_Leary Dispatch_   


> Addison Margaret (nee Simpson) Lawson: Mrs. Lawson, wife of Joseph Edwards Lawson, was killed today in a head-on collision on Route 72. Several witnesses saw the accident, but none could identify the second vehicle, which fled the scene of the crash.
> 
> Everett Dawson Hill: Mr. Hill, brother of local lumber mill owner, Holland Hill, and manager of the Leary Trust Bank, died today of multiple injuries. He was brought into the emergency room by two of his nephews. Police are making inquiries.

* 

The local cemetery is the first place I look, trying to figure things out. Two names leap out at me – Lawson and Hill, both heavily outnumbering the rest of the interred. I read the dates and try to piece together something of a history, but none of it seems to make sense, nothing ties together. I try the local records office and get more dates that don't mean enough, and then I try the library.

The librarian is equal parts historian and town gossip, so I just take the microfiche she gives me and start scrolling until I see something – anything – that makes it all fit.

* 

_Leary Dispatch_   


> Reginald Hill: Son of local bank manager, Everett Hill, was found today, the apparent victim of a hunting accident. Bad times have befallen the Hills of late, as Reginald's cousin, Jacob, was recently lynched, possibly by local Negro groups, and beaten to the point that doctors assume he'll never walk again.

* 

The bank's not hard to find, it's one of the few old buildings in town that isn't boarded up or abandoned for the bigger town twenty-five miles away with a Wal-Mart and a 24-hour grocery store, with fast food and the promise of convenience and maybe a better life. Most everything here has fallen on hard times, unable to compete with neon and asphalt.

I speak to the lone teller who has me sit down at an unused desk while she goes into the back office. I can see a man looking out, his balding scalp reflecting the florescent light.

I put in a phone call to the lawyer who handed the property transfer, the inheritance. My inheritance. He's doing some research, but I figure it can't hurt to start here. The bank manager comes out, his tie barely hiding the tension straining at the buttons of his shirt.

"Hello. I'm Bert Evanston. I'm the bank manager. How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for some information on the house I inherited. It's 640…"

"The old Lawson place."

I have to laugh, it's hard not to. "I guess everyone knows."

"Not a lot of strangers around here." He rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable. "Not sure why it brings you here."

"I'm unclear exactly why I inherited the house. I was hoping someone might be able to help me figure it out."

"I'm sorry. All bank records are confidential." He shrugs and I can't help but think he doesn't look sorry, he looks a little relieved. "I'm afraid there's really nothing I can do for you."

I nod, because there's nothing else I can do either. He turns away and I can see the circles of sweat beneath his arms, the wet stripe of it along his spine. "Is there anyone else I could ask? Not about the bank records, obviously, but about the house? The Lawson house?"

"All the Lawsons are dead."

"I figured as much. I doubt I'd be living in their house if there was still a Lawson alive."

Something flashes in his eyes in the instant before he gets himself under control, shuts it down. "I'm sorry. I can't help you."

I nod and leave the bank, heading for the library again, already on the phone to my lawyer. In the end, I hadn't needed the bank manager to say a word. His eyes had said it all.

* 

_Albany Herald_   


> In a late night tragedy, Elizabeth Lawson (nee Burroughs), and her son, David, were killed when her car caught fire after going off the road. Mrs. Lawson was returning home to Mobile Bay after an argument with her husband, Michael, after which she quickly left Leary.
> 
> A witness to the accident, Herbert Wayne Hill, stated the car had been swerving erratically before it hit the median and flipped several times, bursting into flames instantly, preventing rescue efforts.

* 

I was right about the librarian, and given a chance and company, she was more than happy to tell any tale. Her eyes lit up like jackpots when I finally asked, and she cleared her throat to begin.

Her voice has the roughness of too many cigarettes, a sandpaper scratch that grows worse with every word. "Oh Lord," she rasps. "The Lawson place. That poor, poor family."

"What happened?"

"What didn't, dear?" She laughs and then coughs. "It was like some old-fashioned feud. All of them hating each other for no reason they understood, carrying on. Hating Holland and the Hills and hating Lawsons until nobody was left. Ridiculous to keep it up when no one can remember the beginning, no one can remember back to when this town was nothing more than a collection of dirt roads, a church and the Hill General Store. Ridiculous and childish and petty." She smirks and shakes her head. "Just like men"

* 

_Leary Times-Register_   


> Today was a sad day as Holland Hill buried the last of his seven children, his son Terry. The funeral was held at Oakmont Cemetery where the Hill family plot is near capacity, only Holland himself left to carry on the family name. "No man should have to bury his children," Holland stated at the graveside, the earlier viewing featuring a closed casket due to the gun accident that claimed Terry's life.
> 
> Speculation that it was a suicide was quickly quashed by both Hill and his family lawyer, though the typical gossip that the Lawson family is behind the Hill's misfortunes was absent given that the recent death of Michael Lawson, following the tragic accident that killed his wife and son, ended the Lawson family line as well as any feud that lingered between the families.

* 

I have to drive to the next town to find a fax machine, and I wait for the paperwork drinking coffee from a chain I can find most anywhere in America, though the coffee here tastes different. The water, I suppose, or maybe just the outside heat sapping something from me that keeps me from tasting anything but the smells in the air.

"You're not going to like it," my lawyer had said, trying to hedge around what he'd found. I'd told him to fax it and reminded him who was paying for everything, so he got the copies to me as quickly as he could. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, one piece leading to the next, finding matching colors and borders until the picture became clear.

The final piece settled in, strangely anticlimactic as I read the adoption papers, the nearly illegible scrawl that cramped the bottom line, the scrawl that echoed other birth certificates, from other documents I'd seen all too recently.

There are no secrets in a small town, no strangers either. Which meant it was time for me to introduce myself.

* 

_Springcreek Missonary Baptist Church Announcements_   


> Joseph and Addison Lawson announced today that they are the proud parents of a baby boy, Michael Edward Lawson. Both mother and baby are doing well. Mr. Lawson stated that, despite the horrible attack that left Mrs. Lawson hospitalized just a few months before the announcement of her pregnancy, the delivery was swift and easy, and the baby is perfectly healthy. They expect to leave the hospital soon. 

* 

He looks like a tired old man, surrounded by the last faded glory afforded him by virtue of who he used to be in a town that probably never was. All I see is white and wrinkles, mottled skin that's as thin as tissue paper.

"Addison."

It shouldn't be a surprise after everything I've found out, after learning who he is and who I am, but as far as I know, no one else _knows_ who I am. All my life I've been someone, and now I'm someone else entirely. "How do you know my name?"

"Because you're the image of your grandmother." He doesn't move from his chair, maybe he simply can't, but his eyes move sharp and impatient, afraid of what they might miss.

"I think I've figured it out." It took some time, reading the same words over and over, tracing family trees until all the roots and branches were nothing but a tangled mess, but eventually the bark split and spilled it out like sap running in spring. "My grandmother, Addison." The word sounds strange. I've lived my life as Yvonne, surrounded by strangers, and now I have a family, gone past ripe to putrid with history. "She was your sister."

"Half-sister." His hands shake as he lights a cigar, the thick and waxy smoke taking time to fill the heavy air. "Her mother was my father's mistress."

"She was also your lover."

"Yes." He seems pleased, like I've figured out something that no one else has seen, when the reality is that most of them simply looked away. "Even knowing didn't stop us."

"But she got pregnant." This was the crux of it, and once I'd laid everything out in order, it's where it all started to make sense. "You couldn't marry her and she wouldn't get an abortion."

"Even if she would have, there was nowhere to go back then, not without money or everyone finding out."

I wonder if it's the first time he's told this story, heard the words said aloud. "So she did the only thing she could and married someone else, let him think the baby was his."

He glares at the cigar through the haze of smoke, the bright orange ember like dusk fireflies. "She eloped. Married him. Slept with him."

"And passed your baby off as his."

* 

_Leary Times-Register_   


> Evan Jude Lawson, infant child of Joseph and Addison Lawson, was buried today. The child was killed earlier this week, struck by a car on the street outside the couples' home.

* 

"He found out. The baby needed blood and neither of them was a match, but I was. Addison came to me because she knew. And then he knew, and he threw Addison out and it should have been fine."

"But it wasn't."

"She'd fallen in _love_ with him." He spits the word out like it's a curse, a ribbon of brown stained phlegm hitting the decaying carpet. "With _Joseph_."

"And your wife…"

* 

_Leary Times-Register_   


> In the latest tragedy to befall the Hill family, Madeline Hill (nee Jefferson), was found today by the family maid. The investigation is still underway, but sources close to the police department state that accidental drowning is the most likely cause of death, quickly refuting suicide as a possibility. 

* 

"Pregnant and not inclined to support my disgusting habit." He snorts and then blows his nose into a handkerchief that's seen better days. "Addison convinced Joseph to take her back, perhaps telling him she was pregnant again, or maybe just convincing him of how much it would hurt _me_."

"So they got back together. Built a life. Built a family."

"They built _nothing_." His words come faster now, slurred with an accent and enough hatred to hold the walls up in the crush of southern heat.

"They built something. They had to for you to have destroyed it."

* 

_Leary Dispatch_   


> Brothers Daniel and William Lawson were both found dead this morning in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Sons of local businessman, Joseph Lawson, there is no word on why they were in Florida, though DEA agents were seen at the site.

* 

"No." There's no shame in the word, nothing in his voice that denotes sorrow, that acknowledges the waste he's wrought. "I did what was right, what had to be done. She was mine first, not his. She belonged to me."

"You raped her."

"I took what was mine!"

"And then?" My voice breaks and it's only then that I realize I'm matching his tone, shouting almost as loud.

"And then." He leans back in his chair, king of the run-down kingdom he surveys. "Your daddy was the last."

"I'm the last."

"He was smart, like _his_ daddy. Put you up for adoption and was damn sneaky about it. But I found you in the end. Family always wills out." His cigar smolders, fading to ash. "You're the last of the line. The last Lawson by birth, the last Hill by blood."

"No. Not quite the last Hill. Not yet."

It's easy in the end. Must be something inherent, passed down from generation to generation.

Something in the blood.

* 

_Albany Herald_   


> In a bizarre end to a tragic life, local businessman and former lumber mill owner, Holland Hill, was found dead in his home, allegedly shot by a potential intruder, who then turned the gun on herself in what is being called a murder-suicide. No identification was found on the alleged intruder's body, and police are asking locals to step forward if anyone has any knowledge regarding the woman, roughly mid-twenties, dark brown hair and green eyes.
> 
> Rumors are flying rampant around Leary, Georgia, and locals are calling this a fitting ending to a tragedy going back three generations. Papers found in the rental car will hopefully give police clues to both identity and motive for the crime.


End file.
